Diana stands on her toes to reach the rose-colored curtain dividing the room into quarters. Just feet away, a ventilator attached to a patient beeps in perfectly timed intervals, a reminder that the line that separates life from death is as thin as the curtain between the patients. “Will the noise of the ventilator be a distraction?” Diana inquires. She is always in tune with the needs of others around her.
Diana’s depth of concern for people first developed when her mother was hospitalized after a hysterectomy in 1999. Diana sat by her mother’s bedside and quietly observed the way the nurses lavished her with care. “I thought, ‘Wow, these women are doing amazing things.’ That was the first time I knew I wanted to be a nurse,” Diana told us.
Diana began thumbing through the pages of nursing materials. The more she learned, the more her heart began to beat for the world of nursing. Diana had heard about the School of Nursing in Calcutta and submitted her application. When she received an acceptance letter, her dream took flight.
Diana today serves as a nurse at Calcutta Mercy Hospital. “I absolutely love my job because I have the privilege of showing love every single day. Every day I make a point to ask each of my patients how they are doing. So often, they are filled with anxiety. For some of them, it is their first time in a hospital. I do everything within my power to make them feel comfortable,” Diana beams. She does it well. The patients in her care smile widely when they see her approach. Her presence puts them at ease.
The School of Nursing provided Diana with the tools to deliver quality care to patients. She would like to continue her schooling at the College of Nursing so that she can better serve beyond hospital walls, particularly in the suburbs that are in dire need of healthcare facilities. “I want to help the poor in any way I can - financially, physically, and by providing free medication. Whatever I can give, I want to give freely to them,” Diana affirmed.
Her passion for the “least of these” is obvious as her eyes well up with tears. Not only does she want to help the poor in the suburbs, she would like to go into the specialized field of psychiatric nursing, explaining, “During my time at Calcutta Mercy School of Nursing, I took a one-month course where I visited a mental hospital. Many people were laughing at the patients, but I could only think of what may have been going on in their minds. They are isolated and lonely. They need someone to listen and someone to care.”
Diana pauses and smiles, the ventilator still beeping like a metronome in the background. “I feel very blessed to be a nurse,” she reflected. “It is a gift to reach out and touch a life.”